This invention pertains to apparatus for assembling, by welding, from individual, elongate plate components, an elongate, hollow-form, rectangular-cross-section box column. For illustration purposes herein, a preferred and best-mode embodiment of the invention is described in conjunction with assembling a square-cross-section box column of the type intended for use in a structural building frame—an application wherein the invention has been determined to offer particular utility.
The proposed assembly apparatus receives a pre-assembly of the elongate plate components that are to be made up into such a column—for example, a preliminarily tack-welded plate-component pre-assembly, having a long, central axis—and, employing plural (at least two), specially constructed, longitudinally spaced, pre-assembly-circumsurrounding, openable/closable, rotational support closure structures, cooperatively holds this preassembly in a generally horizontal position for selective rotation to different, temporarily stabilized angular positions about its long axis for full-welding unification through robust, fill-strength, column-finishing welds that are created along the adjacent long edges of the pre-assembled components. Preferably, though not necessarily, these column-finishing welds are performed by an automated, essentially continuously traveling welding instrumentality which moves along the lengths of the preassembled plate components in a manner uniquely unimpeded, and freely accommodated, by the rotational support structures that form parts of the assembly apparatus. Travel clearance for welding-instrumentality movement successively past the rotational support closure structures is accomplished, according to the invention, by a permitted “opening” of selected portions of the closure structures—an action which is accomplished without compromising in any way configurationally stable continuous supporting of the pre-assembly components.
In such an arrangement, it is, of course, important that the pre-assembly components be supported with assured configurational stability during the full-welding-assembly procedure. It is also important that these components, in their pre-assembled form, and during welding, (a) be rotatable as a unit about what will become, when full welding assembly is completed, and what already effectively is in the component pre-assembly condition, the resulting assembled-column's long axis, so as to accommodate the easy forming and development of the required elongate, inter-component welds along the entire length of the pre-assembly, and (b) be supported in a manner which permits an automatic, or hand-operated, traveling welding instrumentality to move, preferably with non-stop continuity, past the rotational support closure structures which support the preassembled components during the process. Such rotation during welding helps, inter alia, to balance and minimize potential heat-induced warping distortion.
In order to enable the practice of accommodating non-stop continuity welding, the rotational support closure structures are specially formed so as to be selectively partially openable without disturbing the required maintenance of the stable positional relationships that have been established between the pre-assembly components.
In this context, and from one point of view of the invention, its proposed apparatus features (1) an elongate, substantially horizontal frame possessing a substantially horizontal, rotational-assembly axis, (2) at least a pair of box-column pre-assembly rotational support structures, or rotational support closure structures, mounted at spaced locations on the frame, designed to receive, and to furnish support for rotation about the rotational-assembly axis for, such a pre-assembly. Each support structure includes, in respective conditions operatively centered on the apparatus' rotational-assembly axis, (a) an openable/closable, dual-section yoke defining an openable/closable, generally circular, collar-reception zone which, with the yoke closed, is circular in configuration, (b) an openable/closable, dual-section collar, which is circular in perimetral outline when closed, and removably receivable, and rotatable effectively, within the yoke's circular collar-reception zone, this collar, when closed, possessing a central, non-rectangular throughpassage which is defined by a first pair of opposite, straight-angle sides, and a second pair of opposite, outwardly-directed obtuse-angle sides, opening of the collar splitting, and opening up, its throughpassage, along a line connecting the vertices of its obtuse-angle sides, into two, equal and matching-configuration, wedge-shaped troughs, and (c) a pair of removably collar-attachable, double-wedge clamping shoes, one for each obtuse-angle side of the throughpassage, these shoes, when attached to the collar, and with the collar closed, forming, in cooperation with the collar's throughpassage's straight-angle sides, a rectangular-outline window for confinedly, and complementarily, receiving extension therethrough of the rectangular-cross-section of a box-column pre-assembly in a condition with the pre-assembly's long, central axis substantially coincident with the apparatus' rotational-assembly axis.
This apparatus is designed specifically to handle such a pre-assembly of plate components having, in the pre-assembly, long, lateral, parallel, edges that define, collectively, plural, elongate, parallel, inter-plate-component, weld-awaiting interface seams, or valleys, and the yokes and collars are respectively configured whereby opening thereof is effective to expose, in a manner facing upwardly to accommodate welding access, a pair of such seams. As will be seen, each section in each dual-section yoke possesses at least a portion which is generally arcuate and semicircular in configuration, and in fact one of the two sections in each yoke is essentially entirely arcuate and semicircular in overall configuration. Somewhat similarly, each of the two sections in each dual-section collar is essentially entirely arcuate and semicircular in overall configuration. Further, each yoke and collar is structured to promote, during box-column assembling, cooperative openings thereof about, or very near, a particular, substantially horizontal plane disposed above the underlying frame.
Operatively associated with, and straddling, the frame in the apparatus of the invention is a basically conventional, traveling welding instrumentality having a pair of laterally spaced welding heads disposed appropriately above the frame, and an elongate track supporting the welding instrumentality for movement along a travel path paralleling the apparatus-included rotational-assembly axis, and for thereby guiding the welding heads along laterally spaced welding paths that are disposed, respectively, immediately overhead, and parallel to, any open-yoke and open-collar, upwardly exposed interface seams in any pre-assembly then supported by the rotational support structures.
These and other features and advantages that are offered by the invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description thereof which follows below is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.